The "True" Purpose of Competition

Watched a Hong Kong drama. Kinda feel sad for the guy who tries to force another to compete with him to determine the best player. Which led me to think: What is the point of competition? When can we tell that it has gone too far?

I supposed you can say competition is the order of nature. Natural selection functions via competition. I feel that humans are the ultimate competitors. Ever since the day a human is born, you can expect some parents from someone will start pitting your children against others. When children mature, they will pit themselves against their peers. When they finally have their own children, they will pit their children against others. It is a never-ending cycle.

What is the point of competition? To prove you are better than others. To feel the thrill of competition. To make your "stake-holders" happy.  I fully agree with all, the first two in particular (personally experienced them). However, the point of competition is actually to find your weaknesses and overcome them.

Victory against someone or something is simply a temporary state, with many qualifiers. Everyone can improve and in competitions, many factors can magnify the difference between two players. The topics that come out in exams, the wind condition, a careless error of judgement in hitting a ball. All these depend on luck. Beating your opponents because of these factors hardly proves that you are better. I think whether win or lose, your biggest gain should be the knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses and what you can do to improve yourself. The great sensation of winning is simply a reward for your past hard work and should not be the ultimate aim of winning. After all, beating someone may not prove anything at all. The factor separate the two may just be luck. No competition can ensure that all players are at their peak, compete under the same conditions, use the same equipment, enjoy the same level of training. No competition is completely fair. Therefore, the results of competition may be significant, if at all. But through a competition, you can surely sense your strengths and weaknesses. You can analyze "match" and decide what is your strength. Weaknesses are more easily felt. Competition lets you acutely sense your weaknesses and generates a sense of urgency to overcomes them. How can you forget the feeling losing to someone due to your weakness? While everyone cheer the victor, it is actually the loser who potentially stands to gain more. Make no mistake about this.

When someone becomes obsessed with beating someone or obsessed with challenging others to determine who is better, they have gone too far. When you win, you should feel happy and proud because you deserved it or because of your exceptional good luck or because you overcome your obstacles. Like I stated previously, the ultimate goal of competition should not simply be victory against someone - it should be a process of discovering where you can improve. I now believe challenging someone just to prove who is stronger is a waste of time but challenging someone to further improve yourself is the true purpose of competition.

You can get carried away at the moment but never forget the true purpose of competition. In addition, there is no perpetual winner or loser and there is absolute no competition that is 100% fair. To be competitive simply to prove you are the best is kidding yourself. A competition is meant to enable you to assess yourself.

Just Gotta Evolve

I feel like a fish out of water. Or in Japanese animation, they are on a different level of power from me. And the occasional careless mistake can be costly. In school, careless mistakes do not cost so much. A few marks off, one grade down. But in the real world, careless mistakes can make people think lowly of you - the implication is tremendous! First thing to plug is my careless mistakes.

Second thing is to inculcate a habit of double checking. Never trust anyone. Always double check. Never mind if it takes slightly longer. Always double check. I cannot emphasize this enough. ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK OR YOU WILL LIVE TO REGRET!

Decided

Decided. To live a max of 60 years. UNLESS something or someone changes my mind. Too tiring to live so long and too... Sometimes I don't really know why I think in a "holier than thou" way. Guess that is my nature. Even though brain knows better than to slip down this path, it lapses sometimes. Better be dead than to act like that. In the meanwhile, I must learn to release my energy on a more consistent basis.

Operation Kill Sloth

For the past 3 months, I look like an idiot, sound like an idiot, must be an idiot. Granted, managing human-human relations is not my forte. Despite this, I do realize that if I do not ameliorate my ability in this, I will get no where. Despite what some people may think, soft skills are extremely important - they form the core of a person's ability. You can have all the knowledge in the world. But soft skills is needed to make people listen to you and to believe you. Without knowledge, you have no credibility. Without soft skills, you are a misfit.

Kill Slot:. I need to whack my inner sloth harder. I have been wasting my weekends these days. Unacceptable for a newbie (actually, more of a noob). I reminisce the past year when I am able to bring myself to work even on weekends, rain or shine. Now, weekends seem to be a time to relax. True, I need to relax a bit. The problem is that I seem to relax to much. The Sloth is stronger than my other self now and I must find my old self before it is too late.

Strangely felt like asking CR out yesterday for dinner at Vivocity. She agreed. Let's see. This is the.... 3rd time I asked an individual out. There is my Sis and another person. That was years ago. I did spend time with people alone. But not asking people out individually. Why I ask her out? Good question. Let's see.

1) I see myself in her. I got to where I am because of luck (in addition to hard work and some talent of course). I think this is what sets us apart. If I were to take her path, I am quite sure I would be in the same state as her. That is why I would like to help her if I can, if it does not infringes any moral/legal issues.

2) I can understand how she feels now - the pressure to secure a job, coupled with the uncertainty of whether her own ability is sufficient to take on the job. I can totally understand. Been through that phase 4 years ago. But I do not really know how she thinks. Part of me wants to know her better to see how to help her.

3) I have positive feelings for this person I think. Maybe it is because I feel we are quite alike. Of course, it could be an illusion on my part again. Therefore, I am keeping this thing under tight control in case it spirals into insanity. I do not sense positivity from her end (except that she kind of admires my state of employment and my ability while in school). All the better. Quite confident that things will be kept under control.

4) I just need company?? The feeling of going out with friends is just... nice. Whether is it GL people or others. I must admit. Going out with females is more appealing than with males for some reason.

Just saying what I want

Ran on Tuesday. Fell. Scraped my knees. No gauze at home. No gauze at shops downstairs. Dad worried but don't know what to do. Mum didn't even bother (If Hazeline Snow works, wouldn't you think hospitals would be using them by now?). Slept facing up that night so I would not stain my bed. Injury not too bad. So it wasn't too much of a concern. Just a little inconvenience. What bothers me more is that no one can help/bothers to even worry a bit. Just proves that I cannot depend on parents anymore (or a certain person didn't really care, as long as I did not inconvenience that person). Friends bothered more than that person. No wonder I like my friends much better.

Today. Spoke to XY about stuff. I actually talk quite a bit. Surprised. Then at dinner, revealed more. I think I have changed. In the past, I would feel the need to step up my efforts. Now, I will analyze, weigh options and not be rash. Good. Very good.

Re-start: Project Final Fantasy II

Cancelled NT-D. I was not motivated enough during this period. Decided to forge ahead with Project Final Fantasy II. Hope it would be as successful as its game counter part.

So I graduated and started working. Below is a preliminary list of what I ought to do:

Finances:
1) Begin plan to repay parents and aunts (amount to be worked out, taking into account point 2).
2) Begin to take charge of bills (phone bills) and pay for family grocery.
3) Begin to consider certain form of investment (bank interest is ridiculously low).
Social:
1) Stop feeling self-conscious and start to play the sociable person. Never mind about feeling weird.
2) Engage everyone. BUT still be nicer to certain people.
3) Reduce Facebook time if there is no one to chat with.
Physical:
1) Stick to exercise programme. Gym twice and run twice a week.
Mental:
1) Consider MBA or Master's in Public Health
Personal:
1) No more wasting weekends. Do office work or read up to improve self or meet friends.
2) Consider learning s******* and c******.

Post-Commencement High

2 days after Commencement and I am still feeling high. Uploaded pictures to facebook, kept checking friends' updates and photos. Totally enjoying this euphoria. : )))))

Let's do a quick stock take of the 4 years and the very very important people I met

Year 1:

Did badly at CAs. Barely passed most of them. Practicals were a flop as well, especially organic chemistry practicals. Good think seniors (Vincent Oei) gave pointers on how to write good reports. Met favourite TA, Chuu Ling (she looks and feels like my chemistry teacher, Mrs. Choo). Beginning of 4 years with good friend Yi Lian. We ended up taking many many core modules together.

Remembered the pathetic trembling when I was doing presentation for Intro to Computing. This is probably one of the worst presentation I gave, along with Council meeting 2 weeks ago... Pleasant surprise when I got my first results slip. 4.8 + dean's list no. 1 in sem 1 and then 4.9 + dean's list no. 2 in sem 2! Totally unexpected. Unexpected that my Biodiversity module got an A+! I admit that this is one of the core module that I had the least interest in. Translation module was fun and I like Prof. Ho a lot.

This was the first time I had to stay up late the night before exams to finish studying and it would continue this way the next 4 years. I was worried about being a one-hit wonder (i.e. dean's list for only once, or for only 1 year) then.

Year 2:

The year when memorizing is the order of the day. Cell biology and metabolism. I remembered for cell biology, I was feeling that my brain is absorbing the info so slowly... Metabolism, I memorized all the pathways. Quite proud of it. But it was hazy then and I forgot almost everything now. 

Grace advised I switch combination from 2101+2102 in 1st sem to 2103+2104 in first sem. Think it was the right move. 4.7 + dean's list no. 3 in sem 1 and 4.8 + dean's list no. 4 in sem 2. Met Yin Ning and Wei San at Bioinfo group. Also took Immunology at Year 2 when it was a Year 3 module. Got A+ for it. Haha. Though I studied everything, I managed to predict a question correct and did extra reading. That helped quite a bit I think.

Got A for Year 2 stats module, in addition to the A for Year 1 stats module. A very big relieve since maths was one of my weaker subjects in earlier part of my life. Took another translation mod with Sis. Haha. My first B+. At least I took 1 module with her in school. I didn't bother to S/U it. B+ is not bad. Why S/U it?
Took dynamics of interpersonal effectiveness. I know communication is important and I am lacking there. So I took. Many people took because it was easy. BUT easy it was not. The concepts are rather easy to grasp and lectures seem redundant. However, the way to answer question is the tricky bit. I managed to grasp the way the lecturer think and got an A-which means I have much to learn about communications actually.

Perhaps the most important module in year 2: experimental cell and molecular biology. Luckily had Chuu Ling as TA again. Got to know Lin Hui, Jake, Hannah and Yvonne.

Year 3

Took UROPS with Prof. Chew. I was hesitating that time. Yi Lian was quite sure she wanted to take UROPS. I knew the value of a UROPS, but was fretting over meeting supervisors. Got to thank Yi Lian for this. Met Jiang Nan and Grace Koh, my mentor and senior for UROPS. It was quite a disappointing experience. For all my CAP, i realised I sucked big time at research. Most memorable event was getting shouted at by Prof. Chew at S2 Level 4 seminar room 1 for not interpreting results more cautiously. It was a good learning experience, though I felt I did not live up to expectations and let my mentor and seniors down. I was feeling so stressed up at the paediatric lab that I actually dreaded going over. I got an A though. It was not something I am proud of.

BUT besides research experience is that I got to know the GossipLane people. Those are the 1st people in my life who told me to go get a 1st class for them. Never has anyone said that to me - not even my parents. They are someone very special and important to me.

Yielded another B+ for Structural Biology, a core module! I knew it was a goner after the exams. Could not finish almost 40% of the questions! Felt my brain moved really really really slowly. First time I missed out on Dean's list in sem 1 (4.5) but managed to get in again in sem 2.

Sem 2 was more interesting. My fav module: infectious disease! Thanks Jung-Pu for her extra notes. Probably helped in getting my A+. Got 2nd highest for CA for Tumor biology (a year 4 mod). Quite surprised. Me, a year 3 student, actually got 2nd highest in the year 4 module.

Year 4

Chose to leave Prof. Chew's lab to do what I really wanted to do: Virology research!!! After a big turn, managed to work in Prof. Ng's lab. I chose Prof. Ng because 1) she is a full professor (better brand name?) 2) IT'S VIROLOGY. Started Project Final Fantasy - a codename for my FYP. I thought if i screwed this up again, I will have proven myself incapable of research. Good thing it did not "crash and burn". Haha.

It was a blast at the Lab. Loved my seniors at Prof. Ng's lab and Prof. Deng's lab. The hours were long. But somehow, the idea of working with viruses and the aim to get 1st class drove me. Seniors gave lots of advice as well. Gotta thank all those seniors lots.
An ugly B appeared for Toxicology. Must be because I mistook one Prof's answer for another. They were teaching similar topics. So I forgot to note who asked that question in the exam and happily wrote the wrong Prof's answer in. Oh well.

But I topped the class for Advanced Cell Biology! No prize though. Oh Oh! Not to forget. My FYP supervisor, who is also lecturer for this module used my name as the protagonist on one of her questions. It was weird trying to answer a question with my name on it. Haha. Protein engineering is definitely one of my favourite module. Loved the way how scientists can create novel proteins and loved my Zinc Finger Nuclease!!!

Between Functional Genomics and Genetic Medicine in Sem 2, I chose the latter. Kind of tired of only learning techniques and not other aspect of life sciences. I wasn't disappointed. I managed to learn more about genetic studies, something that was missed out in the curriculum thus far. Very amazed at the sequencing technology today and how great products can come out when we combine biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. The presentation was a gruelling one and up till year 4, I couldn't do Hardy-Weinberg question.
For FYP, I realised how bad I am at writing. But I think I did quite well for poster presentation. Was enjoying the interaction with my examiners.

Conclusion:

So after 4 years,

in terms of academic achievements, I obtained 6 dean's list (out of 8 possible), 20% of my grades were A+, did not use a single S/U, gained an award for being the top student of my concentration and a better appreciation of life science research AND I managed to live out my dreams of dabbling in life sciences for 4 years. Loved the subject!
In terms of friends, I am especially happy to have known GossipLane people, Jiang Nan, 2202 bench people, Yin Ning, Wei San, Jung Pu, Advanced Cell Biology people, everyone in Prof. Ng's and Prof. Deng's lab.
In terms of character, I am glad that I came out a more determined and driven person. Not necessarily smarter, but more willing to pursue something to the end.

It was a great time to have worked with everyone.
Still, academic achievement is but only one part of life. There is a lot that I have to learn and there are many many thing I can learn from others.